A 64-year-old man twice convicted of threatening public officials pleaded not guilty Thursday to threatening five Orange County Superior Court judges.
Bruce Richard Senator, who has filed numerous lawsuits against public officials in the county dating back to 1999 and was found by a federal judge in 2013 to be a vexatious litigant, on Thursday denied five felony counts of threats to a public official with a prior conviction and a felony count of threat to injure officer in performance of duties with a prior conviction.
The nature of how the alleged threat was conveyed was not immediately known.
Senator pleaded guilty in August 1997 to two counts of threatening public officials and a count of criminal threats, all felonies. He was sentenced to four years and four months in prison for threatening two Orange County Superior Court judges who had been handling separate civil cases involving the defendant, according to The Orange County Register.
Senator was convicted in June 2007 of two felony counts of threats to injure an officer in performance of duties. He was acquitted of two counts of threatening a public official with a prior conviction.
Senator was sentenced to five years and four months in prison.
Senator, who lived in Stanton at the time, served as his own attorney in the trial. He was convicted of threatening two workers’ compensation appeals board judges, according to The Orange County Register.